HOLIDAY CALENDAR: Bianco leads you through December
•To give a boost to Men of a Certain Age (10 ET/PT), a fine show that probably will need the ratings push, TNT brings back its most popular series, The Closer (9 ET/PT), for a three-week run. That's good news for Men and for viewers; the show returns with an excellent episode built around the gruesome gang murder of a boy. Unlike some Closer cases, which try to be more complicated than they initially seem, this one actually succeeds.
Still, the big draw remains Kyra Sedgwick, who skillfully plugs you into both the mechanics of the plot and the deeper emotional ramifications. And you get the additional pleasure of watching Sedgwick and Jon Tenney turn Brenda and Fritz into one of TV's more interesting married couples — two sometimes prickly professionals who know how to manipulate and who know when they're being manipulated, and love each other just the same.